


A Devil Of A Job

by lacrimalis



Category: GrimGrimoire
Genre: Character Study, Friendship, Gen, Origin Story, POV First Person, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-03-13 12:20:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13570467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacrimalis/pseuds/lacrimalis
Summary: You might wonder how a devil could possibly benefit from teaching Sorcery to magicians who, in other circumstances, would just as soon enslave him for their personal gain. Surely only a devil under a strict and immutable contract would do such a peculiar thing.Unfortunately for you, client/devil confidentiality prohibits me from revealing if I even have a contract.So you'll just have to go on wondering.





	1. Chapter 1

It had been long since last I was summoned, and the pull on my essence was almost unrecognizable. My mind furrowed like a troubled brow, examining the sensation.

It began as a tingling feeling, which soon progressed to pins and needles. That feeling spread throughout my essence, reminding me of its limits and dimensions. As I roused from my dreamlike state, the metaphorical pins and needles sharpened into piercing knives.

 _That_ jogged my memory. With a snarl, I answered the summons.

My essence was transported to the confines of a pentacle, and I took my shape: a tall, lean and muscled humanoid with fire-red skin and a fashionable pair of ram’s horns. Coarse brown hair curled from my scalp, armpits and crotch -- and I gave myself a goatee, as an additional personal touch. A forked tail whipped behind me as a brimstone-smelling smokescreen cleared. My alluring almond-shaped eyes glowed red.

“Who summons me?” I demanded to know.

My summoner stood in the pentacle opposite mine. He was draped in colorful and expensive-looking robes, and sported a remarkably long white beard that was tucked into his shirt beneath an enormous turquoise amulet. I immediately pinned him as one of the magical elite -- devils as powerful as me have a knack for these things, you see.

The magician had a beatific smile and a twinkling eye that gave him away as a teacher. Possibly even a headmaster.

“My name is Gammel Dore,” the old man said. “I'm grateful to you for answering my summons.”

I snorted, smoke pluming from the nostrils of my many-ridged nose. “As if I had any choice in the matter.”

“No, I suppose not,” Gammel Dore said mournfully -- _mournfully!_ And he was the one who summoned _me_ here! I ask you. “That is part of the reason I sought you out.”

I crossed my arms and tapped my clawed foot impatiently. Magicians can't resist the urge to indulge in a good, long monologue. And since they're all too self-absorbed to listen to each other, the task of providing an audience usually falls to their unwilling slaves. I generally prefer when my masters are courteous enough to cut to the chase, but there's no stopping them once they get started. I settled in for the long haul.

“I charge you,” Gammel Dore began, and my pointed ears immediately perked up. Cutting to the chase after all, eh? This new master might not be half bad. “... To do no harm, nor to leave my presence until I have made clear my proposal, at which time you are free to remain and accept, or to return immediately from whence you came.”

It's always a bad look to gawp at humans when they surprise you, lest they think they have the upper hand. So I very restrainedly did not gawp, nor indulge in any sounds of disbelief or surprise. Although the utter blankness of expression that remained left something to be desired.

The magician stepped with disarming jollity outside the protection of his pentacle, over to a table upon which he had pre-prepared a kettle with matching cups and saucers.

Then he said, as if completely unfazed by the lunacy of his own actions, “I've prepared some tea, if you're interested.”

His twinkling gaze and genial hospitality stood in contrast to his competence; had he phrased his offer of tea just slightly differently, I could have chosen to interpret it as the aforementioned 'proposal', and been on my merry way without so much as an ‘as-you-wish’. His unorthodox charge had thrown me off my guard, and indeed had immediately lead me to underestimate him. But his careful phrasing demonstrated he was no amateur in dealing with devils.

Then there was that turquoise amulet at his breast: it thrummed with demonic power, and by its essence alone I could tell the devil sealed inside was immensely powerful. I was genuinely unsure whether I would be able to survive a head-on fight with it, should Gammel Dore bring it to bear. There was no telling if he planned to.

I had to tread carefully.

As I stepped outside the pentacle, I took the opportunity to examine the room we were in. Upon the wall were scores of shelves laden with heavy tomes and magical bric-a-brac. Glass faceted like a precious stone domed over the top of the cylindrical room, creating a pretty skylight. A mechanical globe spun sedately in the center of the room, over which glowing images of birds and magical creatures appeared to soar and gambol above it, then vanish. It was clearly enchanted, but I hadn't the time to divine its purpose, nor that of any of the other grimoires or trinkets around us.

I approached to stand an arm's length from my master, eyes narrowing mistrustfully. “Mortal food and drink disagrees with me, I'm afraid.”

Gammel Dore smiled as he poured the contents of the kettle into two little teacups, that damnable twinkle going haywire with mischief. “I think you might find yourself pleasantly surprised, if you give it a try.”

As a general rule, it's a bad idea to consume anything offered to you by a magician in case they’re competent in the school of Alchemy. Gammel Dore smelled strongly of Glamour magic, but he’d had no trouble summoning a high-ranking devil (that's me). And there was that amulet, of course, which demonstrated he could  _seal_ devils, too. So neither was his Sorcery anything to sneeze at.

Whether or not he was a skilled alchemist as well was a complete mystery, but the odds didn't seem in my favor.

I eyed the teacups dubiously, even as Gammel Dore lifted one to his lips and took a hearty sip. I gave him a once-over, and though a sheen of magic covered him like a layer of pixie dust, I detected no spellwork. So by all appearances, he was truly drinking the tea.

But I'd performed enough assassinations to know the cups might still have been lined with something harmful. “If you give me _your_ cup, I'll drink,” I said.

Gammel Dore laughed and replied, “Of course,” and replaced his teacup on its saucer and swapped it with the untouched one, which he took up again for himself. I watched the whole exchange with the scrutiny of a hawk, but detected no magical sleight of hand to justify maintaining my suspicious demeanor.

Not that _that_ was going to stop me, nor had it ever.

I bent my knees and dipped a clawed fingertip into the brew to inspect its sheen. Seemed innocent enough. I sniffed it with my enormous nostrils, but detected hardly anything apart from a faint, plain bittersweetness.

Gammel Dore seemed content to await the results of my investigation as he sipped at his new cup of tea, though he did eventually interrupt. “I'm going to take a seat. Perhaps you'll join me,” he said conversationally, and sit he did.

“Perhaps I will,” I grumbled. His invitation was too indirect to exploit under the restrictions of his charge, but still I hoped I'd get him yet.

Eventually I was satisfied that the tea wasn't going to kill or maim me, and that there was no harm in sitting down. So I acquiesced and sat in the plush armchair opposite Gammel Dore’s. I had to shrink down to a slightly less intimidating size to do so, and I knew just by looking at his grinning face that this was a power play. He _appeared_ to be treating me with respect, offering refreshments and making accessions to my comfort -- but in exchange he wanted me to speak on his level, humanize myself in certain ways.

I didn't entirely resent it. It was nice when these exchanges were characterized by a little bit of nuance.

Once I was settled in, I took a sip of the tea and braced myself for the unpleasant weight of it sitting in my stomach, waiting to be digested. Instead, the moment it went down my throat it seemed to dissipate and spread throughout my essence, a warm and pleasant tingling that momentarily soothed the ache of maintaining a physical form.

I licked my lips with a forked tongue, and I caught the magician eyeing me over his own cup. Though his mouth was concealed, the corners of his eyes were wrinkled in an unmistakable smile.

I tsked. “Not bad,” I allowed.

In reality, it was quite good. I was especially impressed that he had managed to create or acquire a drink suitable for devil _and_ human consumption. But I wasn't about to tell him that.

“I'm glad to hear it,” Gammel Dore said. Then, as if he knew I was wondering, “It is a concoction of my resident alchemist’s, Doctor Chartreuse.”

I stiffened.

Gammel Dore laughed. “Don't worry, it's nothing too dreadful! We just preserved tea leaves in a healing elixir, until the tea it brewed conferred the elixir’s properties.”

I eyed my teacup dubiously.

“You're under no obligation to drink the rest of--”

I stole the magician's words by throwing back my head and downing the cup’s contents in a single gulp. I like a good bit of self-preservation, mind, but I'm hopelessly melodramatic, too. Anyway, he could have ordered me to drink it at any time. What point was there in prolonging the inevitable when I was at his mercy?

The rush of warmth that filled my essence to the brim wasn't bad, either.

I set my teacup down on its saucer with a _clak_ and licked my lips brazenly. “You can tell your resident alchemist that their brew is... almost decent.”

Gammel Dore chuckled. “That's quite a compliment, coming from a devil. I'll be sure to let him know.”

Unaccountably, I became irritated with myself. What was I doing, having tea parties with a magician? I'd done plenty of absurd things in my time, yes, even had my fair share of humiliating orders to obey. But somehow this rankled above all the rest, set my skin itching. The amulet on his chest be damned -- there was no telling if he intended to use it. Why was I buckling before he so much as applied the barest of pressures? As Gammel Dore refilled my cup, I sprawled my legs further apart and slouched in my chair, tail whipping in agitation.

When he straightened up, he only raised his eyebrows gently at my change in position and the eyeful he was getting. Usually it discomfited magicians to have a devil’s protuberance aimed at their face, but evidently this Gammel Dore was made of sterner stuff.

“Why have you summoned me?” I demanded now that I had his attention.

Gammel Dore leaned back and looked thoughtful. “Well, our Sorcery teacher just had a terrible accident. Smudged a pentacle of chalk with the hem of his robe. I always did say his poor posture would be the death of him.”

I snorted at this. As an ancient and noble being spared the harrows of death, and long-since jaded to its inevitability in others, you come to appreciate a little gallows humor. Evidently, Gammel Dore appreciated it too. “I expect the demon he summoned devoured him, then.”

“Oh, yes. I was sitting in on that demonstration, and you could tell she couldn't quite believe her luck.”

Would that _I_ could be so lucky... I examined the hem of my own master's robes, and the boundaries of the two pentacles he had drawn. Pristine, both. Clearly he was a cut above his ill-fated Sorcery teacher.

“In any case, there is a vacancy among the staff that direly needs filling. Our Necromancy teacher managed to locate his soul, but ghosts can't draw pentacles, you see. So he's really only good for teaching theory...”

And then I added, because it had to be said, “There _is,_ of course, not a small amount of irony in learning Sorcery from someone who managed to get himself killed in the doing of it.”

“Precisely!” Gammel Dore looked ecstatic with my contribution. Or maybe it was just that I had contributed at all. Talk about being easy to please. I couldn't help but relax in the face of his good humor and cheer.

“So you want me to, what? Go scouring the globe for a Sorcerer to replace the one you lost?” It wouldn't be the worst job I'd ever had. Granted, Sorcerers get a little volatile when accosted by unfamiliar demons, but maybe I'd get to eat a few if them in ‘self-defense’. And I liked a job that involved a spot of travel.

Gammel Dore smiled, almost... fondly, as if I were a child suggesting something foolish, but for whom he nevertheless held a great deal of affection. I repressed a shudder with effort. The thought was repugnant. Curse these magicians with multiple proficiencies, with their lack of understanding for the customs of Sorcery! I almost preferred the cruelty of a consummate Sorcerer, when faced with circumstances as strange as these. At least they're easier to understand, and more predictable by a long shot.

I slouched further in my chair to broadcast my distaste for his patronizing facial expression.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said with a laugh. “In truth, I haven't met many Sorcerers who I got on with.”

“That's easily explained -- your primary magical school is Glamour,” I said, rolling my eyes. As a practitioner of both, surely Gammel Dore understood that Glamour and Sorcery were as different as night and day. It was natural for magicians who excelled in opposing schools of magic to rub each other the wrong way.

Gammel Dore nodded. “You may have a point there,” he allowed, “although the thing I most take issue with in Sorcery is the harshness with which they treat those they summon. None of that is deemed necessary in Glamour magic.”

“Because _devils_ ," I said with no small amount of derision, speaking slowly as if explaining something to a particularly stupid child, "are more ruthless and conniving than _fluttering fairies_ and _little forest elves._ ”

Gammel Dore fiddled with his empty teacup, examining the flowery filigree design as he lost himself in thought. “I wonder, though,” he said, “if the ruthlessness and cunning of devils might not have been adapted in response to the cruelty of their masters?”

“What does it matter which came first?” I asked impatiently.

Rather than being put off by my apparent disinterest, Gammel Dore seemed to take my question into genuine consideration. He leaned forward to replace his cup on its saucer. “In the end, perhaps it doesn't. But,” he went on enthusiastically, “as headmaster of a prestigious magic school, I am in a unique and privileged position to inform the thinking of the next generation of magic users. And I'd like to start by changing the Sorcery curriculum so that it advocates more ethical treatment of those summoned.”

I couldn't help myself. I laughed. “You think that'll change anything? Start being polite to demons, and they'll forget a millennia of cruelty at human hands? Forgive me, master, but you're _quite_ mad.” At this, I drank long from my teacup and ignored the disconnect between my words and actions. Here I was, denouncing the possibility of ever existing harmoniously with humans, while at the same time enjoying the benefits of a brew they had created as a gesture of goodwill. Something for us to _share_.

Good grief. I was seriously considering what this old buzzard was saying!

Gammel Dore shrugged diplomatically. “Perhaps I am. But there's no reason to continue mistreating them, just because all our efforts will never completely make up for the harm we’ve done.”

I set my empty teacup down and scowled. “So you want my help devising this new... _ethical_ Sorcery curriculum. Is that all?”

Gammel Dore blinked. “Yes, that's part of it. There is still the staff vacancy to fill, and I thought perhaps...”

My eyes went so wide they threatened to burst from my sockets. (It wasn't that I thought myself above such melodramatic illusions, but I was genuinely too struck with disbelief to muster the focus for it).

Visions assailed me of snot-nosed magicians-in-training, asking inane questions and running amok, bungling summonings, bringing silver to class just to test my patience and restraint. I imagined the butchered Latin incantations that once brought me the elation of freedom -- for even a single misspoken word can break a demon's bondage and result in a messy end for the magician trying to control them, just as the Sorcery teacher's scuffed pentacle had. The prospect of encountering this type of idiocy on a daily basis, from a _teacher's_ perspective, exhausted my essence just to think of it.

“ _Absolutely not.”_

Gammel Dore opened his mouth, perhaps to explain, but the conditions of his charge had been met. Before his words had a chance to reach my pointed ears, I had winked out of existence and resumed my formless existence in the Other Place.

I floated in relative satisfaction at having managed to cut short my first summoning in a long time. But eventually, I began to regret my haste in answering.

After all, there had still been plenty of tea.


	2. Chapter 2

I didn't stew long in my regret. The calm embrace of the Other Place, like the ebb and flow of a gentle tide, had a way of absolving all one's earthly troubles. I floated formlessly, considering my newly remembered name, and gave idle thought to the old man’s bizarre suggestion.

Even magicians who dabbled in multiple schools of magic simply took for granted that Sorcery summons required a firmer hand than those called upon with Glamour magic. I had never met someone who questioned this until Gammel Dore.

I decided that if he summoned me again, I would give his offer more serious consideration.

And then, of course, he did.

I took on a more conservative guise this time. In deference to Gammel Dore's sophisticated, scholarly look, I opted for something similar. I took on the guise of a court fop I had once served: a tall, thin man with a pale complexion, and an aquiline nose and goatee that lent him far more severity than he deserved.

(Not that he was particularly undeserving, or no less than any other magician. Certainly he had earned my grudging respect. He just wasn't particularly _severe._ )

My form was a perfect replica, down to the finely-fitted clothes replete with gleaming buttons and handsome lace ruffles. My hair was dark and curly, quaffed to resemble ram's horns. That and my pointed ears were the only concessions of form I made to my nonhuman nature.

I thought I did pretty well for myself, for all the forked tail of my waistcoat was a bit fleshier than necessary, and I hadn't taken on a human guise in centuries.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I saw that my summoner wasn't Gammel Dore at all.

No, instead before me stood a fellow with beautiful golden hair and a strikingly angular face. Surprisingly broad-shouldered, too, for a magician. (Most magicians, in their pursuit of arcane wisdom, tended to neglect their physical fitness. But this one looked as hale and hearty as a sailor.) He looked at me with mirth in the pair of golden eyes hiding behind his glasses. “Expecting someone else, I take it?”

“Yes...” I said slowly. The fact that he knew I was expecting someone could have been an educated guess based on my expression, but I had another hunch.

I took in my surroundings. The room reeked of Alchemy -- and even if I lacked the capacity for taste or smell, it would be obvious just by looking: sealed flasks filled the shelves so completely that some teetered precariously on the edges. All manner of herbs and concoctions were stored in unlabeled jars and scattered helter-skelter about the room. My nose wrinkled with distaste when I detected the unmistakable scent of rosemary, but I didn't see any brought to bear. So the man before me simply had it in one of these jars, and hadn't produced it specifically to torment me.

I looked down at my feet. Papers were strewn about the floor, and just enough space had been cleared of academic detritus to draw the pentacles in which I and my summoner stood.

When I returned my gaze to study my new master, I saw that he had borne my scrutiny with utmost patience. I expressed my gratitude by sneering derisively. “Doctor Chartreuse, I presume?”

The man smiled stunningly, and for a moment I suspected him of trying to work a Charm on me -- but no; upon closer inspection, only the faintly chemical aura of Alchemy lingered about him. It was no Charm, I realized with dismay. Chartreuse just happened to be devastatingly handsome.

As a creature of temptation, I couldn't help but feel as if I had just been one-upped somehow, even though all he had done was smile.

“You're quite correct. I am Chartreuse Grande, the Alchemy professor at the Silver Star Tower. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance...?”

I crossed my arms at his inquisitive tone. “If you didn't know my name, you couldn't have summoned me,” I pointed out, pointlessly.

Chartreuse nodded. “Magicians don't go by their true names, do they? I thought it polite to offer you the courtesy of going by another name as well.”

I placed my head in my hand. All the unspeakable horrors of this world preserve me from strange magicians and their strange olive branches. “Did your noble headmaster put that idea in your head?”

Chartreuse scratched his chin with well manicured nails, upon which was a handsomely manicured beard. I resisted the urge to touch my court fop's (perhaps outdated) goatee self-consciously. “We've discussed it, but no. He didn't provide any special instructions for summoning you.”

“Wait,” I interjected, “he _instructed_ you to summon me?” Of all the indignities! I hadn't even accepted Gammel Dore’s offer -- which I would be doing at great expense to my reputation if I _did_ , I might add -- and already he was outsourcing my summoning to his underlings! I ask you.

“No, not as such,” Chartreuse explained. “I expressed an interest in meeting you, and he provided the instructions necessary to perform the summons.”

I wasn't sure how I felt about the secrets of the Lemegeton being bandied about the magical academia community like lecture notes. Although if they _had_ the Lemegeton at their disposal, that begged the question of why they were still summoning _me,_ when they had a whole host of other devils to offer tenure at their little school.

Maybe they had all declined, as I had.

“How long has it been since Gammel Dore summoned me?” I asked at last.

Chartreuse rocked back on his feet. I watched his movements with acute interest, in case he leaned outside the boundaries of his pentacle. “Oh, about a week and a half.”

That didn't tell me much. Depending on his magical potency, Gammel Dore could have summoned as many as thirty or zero of my fellows in the interim. I wasn't sure at first why I was troubling myself with that, until I recognized in myself a sense of hopefulness -- I _wanted_ the position Gammel Dore had offered, and I was anxious to find out if he had already selected someone else.

“I see,” I said thoughtfully, as if this information had brought me a crucial revelation. Apart from the revelation that I was more invested in Gammel Dore's offer than I thought I was, it had done no such thing. “And you were interested to make my acquaintance because...?”

Chartreuse smiled, and I felt my essence shiver. It wasn't a Charm, I had to remind myself -- it was just his _face_. “I've devised a new brew,” the alchemist said. “Would you like to try it?”

I bit the inside of my cheek, and with stifled eagerness I grudgingly said, “Yes.”

**⛧⛧⛧**

Chartreuse, though not a Sorcerer by habit, managed all the binding and exclusion clauses admirably, well enough that we were out of that miserable, stinking lab and traversing the sunlit, open-air inner halls of the tower by midday. Very little about being summoned to this mortal coil gave me pleasure, but the natural warmth of the sun upon my skin was a rare joy I was happy to indulge in.

I avoided comparing Chartreuse’s presence to the sun itself, but it was a near thing with how the light glinted in his golden hair each time we stepped outside the shade of the columns.

Chartreuse engaged me in idle discussion and disputes of alchemical theory, in between pointing out the architecture of the tower and classrooms of note. He was irritatingly stubborn on some issues, but nonetheless willing to listen to my counterpoints. His argumentativeness made for good conversation. It was fine, I suppose, as afternoons went.

(All right, it was more than ‘fine’. My essence was still thrumming with whatever concoction of Chartreuse’s I had imbibed, and so, I imagine, was his own bloodstream. I might as well have been floating on a cloud. I barely felt the pain of maintaining a physical form at all. All told, it was pretty _damn_ fine, as afternoons went. There. Are you happy?)

As we approached the bottom floor to make use of the courtyard, we were accosted by a well-endowed woman in a tight-fitting dress.

“Chartreuse,” she crooned. I didn't miss the way the alchemist cringed. I glanced askance at him, but he did not offer an explanation for his reaction. “You've been avoiding me.”

It was obvious to me that Chartreuse was displeased by her presence, but perhaps not so obvious to _her_ , as his expression transformed into something blank and polite before he turned to face her. I found I preferred the way his brow furrowed in consternation when arguing an alchemical principle, rather than this bland new mask he donned for our interloper. “Professor Opalneria,” he replied in greeting. “I haven't been avoiding you. I've just been busy.”

She came closer, and I watched with interest as the muscles in Chartreuse’s broad shoulders tensed with each inexorable step she took in our direction. “Someone as handsome as you shouldn't lock himself away in his workshop all day,” she chastised.

I was inclined to agree, but as I had nonetheless gotten to spend the lion’s share of the day in his company, I found no reason to complain.

Chartreuse sighed. “My work is important to me. I'm sure someone as long-lived as you has no need to improve your craft, but there are yet still discoveries for me to make in mine.”

The way her face twisted confirmed my suspicion that this was a jab at her age. I could tell just by looking that her soul was quite old. Nearly as old as Gammel’s, by my count. It was amazing what magic could do to stave off the aging process.

“I don't like surrounding myself with the dead in my spare time. Nor should you surround yourself with puppets as you do.” As she spoke, I catalogued her clothes and accessories to confirm my suspicions: she wore a choker that resembled a pair of blackened skeletal fingers, and a pair of golden ornamental skulls stared vacantly out from her shoulders.

Perhaps it should have been obvious from the first. “Ah,” I interrupted diplomatically, stepping forward and sketching an informal bow, “you must be the Necromancy teacher. How _is_ the Sorcery teacher these days?”

She finally laid eyes on me, sized me up. “Dead as a doornail,” she said flatly, all the allure gone from her voice in an instant. She turned back to Chartreuse, a delicate brow arched. “And who is this?”

“A colleague of mine,” Chartreuse said with a barely suppressed smile and a grateful glance in my direction. “He's visiting for the time being. You might see him around, if he decides to stay. We were just discussing the finer points of Solomon’s geometrical analysis of the traditional pentacle.” We most certainly were not. I grinned conspiratorially. “If you'd like to join us in the courtyard...?”

Opalneria scoffed. “You know what sunlight does to my complexion,” she said. I realized then that she was standing in the shadow of a column, while Chartreuse and I stood equidistant between two such columns. Opalneria ran a hand through her indigo hair so it draped pointedly across her breast. “But dabbling in Sorcery, Chartreuse...? Be careful, or an errant _imp_ could wreak havoc on your little experiments.”

I could see just as well as Chartreuse that she was trying to minimize his works by calling them ‘little experiments’. Childish of her, but understandable enough. Judging by the tone of the conversation, this was only one instance of many where she had been passed up in favor of them. Chartreuse only smiled blandly in response. “We all need to pick up the slack for our students’ sakes, until Headmaster Gammel finds a replacement Sorcery teacher.”

Opalneria jutted her hip out and smiled in a comely way. “If you say so. But if you need any help bending those demons to your bidding, my ghosts will make short work of them...”

“I'll remember that. Thank you.”

With that Chartreuse turned on his heel, and I was quick to follow. I glanced back, and I saw Opalneria watching us depart from the shadow of the column where we left her.

**⛥⛥⛥**

When we arrived in the courtyard, Chartreuse sat upon a wrought iron bench and sighed. “Thank you,” he said, and it warmed me unaccountably to hear the relief and genuine gratitude in it, in contrast to the chill disregard that had been in the thanks he offered the Necromancy teacher. “Her advances tire me on the best of days.”

I grinned toothily. “No room for romance in the handsome alchemist’s life?”

He shrugged and said honestly, “I've never given it much thought. I enjoy my work. That's enough for me.”

I hummed in acknowledgement, and comfortable silence descended between us.

Chartreuse seemed to come back to himself and realize I was still standing. He gestured to the seat beside him. “No need to stand on ceremony, friend. Take a seat. We've been walking for a while.”

I hesitated. “I'd rather stand.”

Chartreuse laughed under his breath, then looked at me more closely with that academic curiosity of his. “Is something wrong?”

I looked across the courtyard at a twisted tree, in whose branches magpies flitted and preened. “That bench is made of iron,” I said.

Chartreuse’s brow furrowed as he puzzled it out. Then his brows shot up and his eyes widened in comprehension. “Oh!” He stood quickly as if burned, and I couldn't help a wry smile at the irony of that. Hah -- _irony._ “Of course. How inconsiderate of me! I think there are wooden benches over there...”

“Think nothing of it,” I said. In truth, I was thinking on it quite deeply, though not because I had taken offense. The unprecedented hospitality the tower’s faculty had shown me was a little overwhelming, if a welcome change from the abuse of my previous masters. I would hardly know what to do with it, were devils not experts at taking advantage of rare opportunities.

The wooden bench in question was, regrettably, held together with iron nails. It barely registered as an inconvenience, but Chartreuse’s flustered apologies were more than amusing enough to make up for it.

“I'm terribly sorry, I never realized... I'll have to bring it up with the headmaster...”

I gestured magnanimously to the tree. “If sitting in the grass is not beneath you, dear doctor, perhaps we can sit there?”

Chartreuse clapped his hands together emphatically. “Certainly! A bit unorthodox, but then, so is a devil for a Sorcery teacher, is it not?”

We made our way to the tree, and I took on the guise of a Grimalkin -- catlike forms are the best for basking and lazing, in my professional opinion. I sat primly and waited patiently for Chartreuse.

Chartreuse only hesitated a moment before sitting down beside the black cat. I had to hand it to him, he adjusted fast.

“I didn't accept his proposal, you know,” the cat said. And I _hadn't_ \-- no matter how many attractive staff members the old man threw at me.

“I know,” Chartreuse said, and I relaxed. “I didn't mean to speak as if it was a foregone conclusion.”

Perhaps it _was_ a foregone conclusion, at that. But I wasn't about to admit it; I had to maintain _some_ mystique about my intentions. “It's fine,” is all I said.

The black cat padded closer and curled up beside the man. I imagined Opalneria could only dreamof coming this close to Chartreuse, and this gratified me. The warmth he exuded wasn't bad either, if I'm honest.

Chartreuse laid a gentle hand between the cat's ears and scratched. I allowed it.

“Are all Grimalkins high ranking devils in disguise?” Chartreuse asked.

“Mostly not,” I said as he stroked the cat's fur. “But only another devil or a canny Sorcerer would be able to tell the difference.”

Chartreuse’s touch grew slow with thought. “All the more reason to have one as a Sorcery teacher, I suppose.”

“A canny Sorcerer?” I prompted with deliberate ignorance.

Chartreuse snorted, an undignified and charming sound. “Not at all.”

**⛧⛧⛧**

Chartreuse and I returned to his workshop that evening for my Dismissal. He had to re-draw the pentacles because one of his homunculi had gotten loose. And I may have elongated the process by smudging the chalk with my shoes when he wasn't looking (I'm a devil -- _sue me_ ). He wasn't fooled, but he wasn't angry either as he swiped harmlessly at my retreating legs.

After much chicanery and general distraction, we stood in our proper pentacles once more.

“I must thank you for indulging me with your company today,” Chartreuse said. It was dizzying to think a man like Chartreuse would be thanking someone _else_ for the pleasure of their company, and yet there we both were.

“I admit I'm not often summoned for tasks as leisurely as day drinking and taking sunlit courtyard strolls. It was... an interesting change of pace.” I bowed dramatically, which seemed to please Chartreuse, because he offered me another one of his winning smiles. “Feel free to summon me another time, if you wish.”

“Forgive me for being presumptuous,” he said, “but I suspect I soon won't have to perform a summons to see you on a regular basis.”

He referred, of course, to Gammel Dore’s standing offer. My lip twisted with displeasure. I may have been too obvious about how receptive I was to the proposal. “Perhaps,” I allowed.

“If there's anything you'd like me to tell the headmaster...”

I sighed and straightened up. “Tell him to summon me in two weeks’ time, if he's still entertaining those foolish ideas of his.”

Chartreuse smiled with amusement. It was a shame that I was only likely to be summoned within the confines of the tower for the foreseeable future -- I would have very much liked to take on his appearance. But the chances of running into him being what they were, that would result in an awkward conversation.

“I'll let him know,” Chartreuse agreed, and with that he spoke the words of Dismissal, and my essence was released from the physical world.


	3. Chapter 3

I learned that Gammel Dore's school was still in its fledgling stages. It was only a year old, still bent over with the ache of its growing pains. Luckily for them the staff had the social and political clout to defend their position and their necessity, so they were in no danger of being prematurely shut down. In fact, from what I gathered the crown seemed to be openly and enthusiastically supportive of Gammel Dore's venture. I wondered about that,  but Gammel Dore had some kind of business to attend to. He promised to explain the school's tumultuous and colorful history another time before dismissing me.

Not a Dismissal that would send me back to my own realm, but rather a verbal one that, by his charges, I could have chosen to ignore. I could have even followed him to his meeting, making myself a nuisance by imposing, causing as much of a ruckus as I pleased. That was how lenient he had been in my charge. I was still reeling with the possibilities.

His only real orders were not to harm anyone within the tower, and not to take anything that I had not been given.

(I was elated with how vague this was. Later I would discover even its meager limitations to be a ghastly inconvenience.)

I magnanimously chose not to take advantage of his good faith and to remain behind, so I bade him farewell and good luck, and all that rot. With a smile and a genial wave, Gammel Dore vanished in a green flash and a swirl of spring flowers.

I was alone in his office. I waited until the last illusory pink petal fluttered to the carpeted floor and disappeared with a wink.

Then, true to form, I began snooping immediately.

Some maps and notes had been left on a table, and I inspected those first. The map helped me get a better idea of the surrounding geography -- but Gammel hadn't forbidden me from leaving, so I could just as easily turn into a creature of flight and investigate for myself. And there was a thought -- perhaps I'd save that for later. The notes were mundane, uninteresting things: one parchment read, 'order supplies', followed by a list of odds and ends that the school required (cauldrons, Florence flasks, practice wands and pendants, bedsheets, chalk, parchment, crickets, mice -- that sort of thing); there also seemed to be a to-do list, featuring highlights such as 'summon M' and 'search 17th floor for traps' and 'summon fairy for Chartreuse'.

Correspondingly, I had three thoughts: first, I quietly appreciated Gammel Dore's discretion in not putting my real name to pen and paper where someone might find it lying around, and I was reminded that I ought to come up with a pseudonym before it became an issue. Second, I wondered why the 17th floor might have traps and why Gammel Dore would have to search for them, if it was his tower. Third, I wondered what in the world Chartreuse might need a fairy for, and resolved to ask him later.

(I thought all three of these things simultaneously. Devils are capable of having multiple thoughts at once without losing track of them. Don't bother trying to understand. You'd probably just give your poor linear brain a conniption.)

Then I moved onto the globe. The shape of the continents hadn't changed overmuch since the last time I'd seen them, so I knew I hadn't been away for long. Two millenia at most. It could easily have been purely decorative, on account of the seemingly random intervals with which those glowing silhouettes flew over it. But across the continents, small pinpricks of light winked in and out, and it made sense to assume Gammel Dore was using it to track something. The only thing I could imagine Gammel Dore caring enough about to keep an eye on would be incidences of magical children, or magic use in general, maybe.

I _could_ ask him later. But I was satisfied that my assumption was correct, so why would I?

Moving toward the edges of the room, I began perusing the shelves. Gammel Dore's books were sorted by magical school. (This is typical of magicians who specialize in more than one.) His primary interest was Glamour, obviously, so the Glamour section was the most extensive of them. So far, so unsurprising.

Upon closer inspection, though, his Glamour collection was... strange. In my experience, Glamour books are usually bound in soft spring green and healthy wood colors, smelling of sawdust and fresh flowers. Some even have _real_ pressed flowers in them, depending on the passion of the bookbinders you commission and the depths of your pockets. And most tend to be new -- Glamour is seen as the friendliest branch of magic, so folks aren’t worried about recreating Glamour grimoires and invoking something terrible in the process. Most well-off magicians have their Glamour grimoires re-bound and personalized.

It was curious, then, to see so many old books with frayed spines, some mere sheaves of aged paper tied together with string that threatened to unravel at any moment. For those that had them, the spines were so faded that I couldn't make out the titles... I reached for one to take a closer look, fascinated and transfixed, and ran aground of the limits of my charge.

A sharp pain interrupted my absent gesture, and I hissed and recoiled. I furrowed my brow and rubbed the pads of my fingers across my thumb, even as the sting subsided. Right. No taking anything I hadn't been given. I shook my hand and blew on my fingertips. "Oh, come on!" I huffed. "I'm not trying to _take_ it. I just want to look!"

The room did not dignify my outburst with a response.

Whatever. I turned away from the shelf. It wasn't as if I cared. I'm sure I could corral our agreement back into the greener pastures of Doing Whatever the Hell I Wanted soon enough. Or I could just ask Gammel Dore to let me see them and, infuriatingly hospitable as it was, he would probably just _let_ me.

At any rate, I was finished here.

I left Gammel Dore's offices and wandered, hoping I would find something I recognized just by chance. The school term didn't begin for a few more weeks, so Gammel Dore had said, so I had the run of the place while I got my bearings and wondered what in Solomon's name I had agreed to. But I had never seen this area of the tower before, and belatedly I realized that I had only been summoned to Gammel Dore's office once, from which I was immediately Dismissed. My next summoning had been in Chartreuse's company, and we had ventured into the tower from there.

After walking for a while and still recognizing nothing, I transformed into a bat and flew out the nearest window. I hoped to get a better idea of how large the tower was, and to see if I might recognize any features from my time with Chartreuse.

Once the bat had flown a ways it faced the tower to take it all in, and its beady eyes bulged in their sockets. I had known that the tower was large, but this behemoth extended into the clouds as it vanished from sight. Its surface had pits and crags that I was incapable of identifying as eccentric design choice or devastating spell damage.

Imagine a mountain dwelling society. Now imagine the way a cliff face upon the mountain of such a society might look, with its sprawling paths and staircases, windows and doors of every size, and the occasional hovel carved out of the mountain into something vaguely house-shaped, with shingles.

Now peel the cliff face off of the mountain, and wrap it into a cone with the point at the top. Only also imagine that angle of the cone is so slight, it looks more like a tube of uniform diameter, until you notice that it is getting ever so steadily narrower as it climbs in height.

That wasn't the only way to describe the tower. I was sure there were better ways, and no doubt it would feature heavily in the memoirs of great magicians to come as they recounted their first memories of the wondrous place where they had learned their wondrous trade. Probably magicians' dispositions toward pretentious metaphor and a heavy dose of nostalgia would make their descriptions much more awe-inspiring and painstakingly descriptive.

(But what do I care about that? It's not my tower, and who do I have to impress? Certainly not you.)

It was formidable, if nothing else. Odds were high that its creator or commissioner had been well and truly out of their mind, and it gave off the subtle suggestion of a desperate madness.

Seeing now the impossibility of recognizing anything by appearance alone, I gave up on conventional means of navigation and opened my eyes to the second through seventh planes to see if I could spot anything of interest.

(There are six observable planes of reality that co-exist alongside the material world, making a total of seven. The first plane includes all physical things, as well as the auras of living things. Most mortals can't see auras, since you all are so dreadfully unperceptive. Low level demonic creatures, such as imps, can see up to the fifth plane, and devils of my calibre can see up to the seventh. Seven is all you need for most things. Anyone who claims to see more than seven is just showing off.)

Opening my sight transformed the tower into a light show of of a hundred different colors, each representing magical activity of some kind. Now _that_ was much more impressive than the stone monolith beneath it on the material plane. I couldn’t really see the tower for the lights, though, so I dialed it down to the first few planes to avoid being blinded. In doing so I recognized a locus of Alchemical energy, shimmering like a displaced sunrise on the third plane. Chartreuse's lab, I realized. And just like that I knew where I wanted to go. The bat dove in the light’s direction, tumbling through a window.

A whirl of shape and energy rolled onto the floor, and a man dressed like a court fop sprang to his feet, brushing off his shoulders with delicately manicured hands.

It wasn't far from there. I followed the twisting halls toward that gently pulsing sun. I rounded a corner, and with relief I immediately recognized the door to Chartreuse's lab.

Naturally, I let myself in.

“My creator!” a small voice chirruped with delight. I looked down to see the strangest thing: a fox-like creature with its head in a Florence flask tottered between potted plants and work desks toward me. The spherical body of the flask was just large enough for its head, and Its torso was compressed in the flask’s neck, pinning its arms to its sides comically so only its hands were free. My mind worked over the creature’s presence, trying to figure out if Chartreuse was involved in some ethically questionable animal experiments. (Not that I would think less of him for it -- on the contrary, I'd be proud of the man. I didn't think he had it in him.)

Eventually I decided this must be modern Alchemy’s idea of a homunculus. Certainly a step down from what it was at Alchemy’s height -- but it seemed they’d solved the problem of its confinement to the vessel of its creation that followed Alchemy's decline. It was a... creative workaround, if a clumsy one.

For its part, the creature skidded to a halt in front of me. It blinked its enormous eyes and realized: “ _You're_ not my creator!”

“No,” I agreed. Its enormous blue eyes blinked up at me without a shred of hostility. I knew I was wearing the semblance of one of my previous human masters, but couldn't it sense that I was a devil? I nearly pitied it for its lack of self-preservation instinct. “Professor Chartreuse is elsewhere, I take it?”

“Yep!” the homunculus said. Then it jumped with a sudden realization. “Oh! Are you Mister M?”

I grimaced, but nodded. I needed to think of proper pseudonym, and soon -- before I was beholden to someone perceptive enough to deduce my name, and all Gammel Dore’s generosity went to waste.

“My creator said you might drop by today! Wait here!” And the homunculus tottered off somewhere. I occupied myself by wandering around the room and conscientiously not touching anything, mindful of the pinpricks I had gotten for it in Gammel Dore’s office.

There were a lot more potted plants than last time. (Last time there had been precisely zero). Remembering Gammel Dore’s note about a fairy for Chartreuse, I deduced he was doing some kind of Glamour experiment, though what it might have been apart from plant husbandry I couldn't say. It was admirable that the plants were doing so well in this environment. Alchemy is anathema to Glamour, after all.

But I couldn’t focus on the mystery of Chartreuse’s flourishing plants.

(Right after declaring my multi-tasking superiority, I know -- but even you will admit these circumstances were strange, requiring more of my mental faculties than idle observations concerning Gammel Dore’s groceries.)

I found myself unable to let go of the thought that Chartreuse had found my arrival worth mentioning to his servant. Certainly, he had been the one to relay my message to Gammel Dore, so it stood to reason he knew I would be in the tower that day. I just. Hadn't expected him to mark the date, I suppose.

It left me feeling strange; having my schedule, nebulous as it was, taken into account by someone else.

Tip-tapping feet and the gentle clatter of glass knocking against tables and shelves heralded the homunculus’s return. I turned to see it struggling to hold a bottle in its restricted hands. “My creator told me to give you this!”

I crouched down and relieved the homunculus of its burden so it wouldn't drop it. (Shattering a homunculus’s container destroys it, so I suspected it would be quite distressed by the sound of breaking glass. And also, Chartreuse had set it aside for me. So that made it mine. Obviously I didn't want it destroyed.) The bottle was clear as crystal, and its amber contents glowed gently within. I grinned with satisfaction. More of that sweet, alcoholic essence balm of his. “Thank you.”

What? The homunculus may have been beneath me, but it didn’t deserve my abuse.

It hadn’t done anything yet to disappoint me, after all.

“No problem!” it replied cheerily.

Holding tightly to my prize, I stood and stared once more at the strange, contorted creature. And it wasn't as if I cared about its well-being -- I would just as soon devour the hapless thing as leave it, if not for wanting to remain in Chartreuse’s good graces -- but I couldn’t help but ask, “Aren't you uncomfortable like that?”

“Like what?”

I gestured succinctly at its whole situation.

It smiled in amicable confusion. “I'm incapable of feeling discomfort!”

“I see.” I debated for a moment longer about eating the homunculus. I wasn't accustomed to having minor spirits or creatures under my power and _not_ eating them. But then, Alchemical creatures aren't very filling, and I would be risking too much of my rapport with the Alchemy teacher by harming it. “... I suppose I'll go find Chartreuse,” I finally said.

The homunculus had waited patiently for me to decide whether its life was worth taking, smiling vacantly all the while. At my declaration, its expression transformed into something resembling awareness again. “Okay, bye!” the homunculus said. It did not wave, but its body swayed as if making an approximation of the gesture.

I saw myself out.

**⛧⛧⛧**

Bottle in hand, I walked the path Chartreuse and I had taken until I found the courtyard, having a mind to drink my bottle in the sunlight. Before I made it to the stairs that led down below, however, a flash of gold caught my attention, and I turned to see the light glinting on Chartreuse’s hair as he pointed at something in the distance. Flitting into view, a fairy squinted in the direction he had indicated, then turned to him and nodded.

Curious, I forewent the stairs and leapt from the second story to land with a cat’s grace in the grass. Beside Chartreuse was a sturdy leather duffel bag, within which glass could be seen glinting from a small opening.

“Chartreuse,” I called as he bent down to sort through the bag. He looked up in surprise, then smiled in delight to see me. I felt my own essence respond in kind, and I tamped down on the smile beginning to bloom on my face just in time to salvage it into a wry grin.

(But only just.)

“Good morning,” he said. “I was planning to show you my latest experiment when it was finished, but your appearance is rather timely. Perhaps it’ll be best to let you see the wonders of Alchemy at work!”

 _That’s not the only thing I’d like to see at work,_ I thought as Chartreuse lifted the heavy bag without so much as a grunt of effort, his muscles shifting beneath his finely tailored coat. It was strange: most magicians tended to focus solely on the intellectual side of their personal development. But obviously Chartreuse had neglected nothing. His broad shoulders and rough hands belied a youth spent doing physical labor, and I wondered if as an apprentice alchemist he had been his master’s pack mule.

“If you say so. What strange and miraculous feats have you prepared for me today?” I cajoled.

Chartreuse’s smile broadened as I fell into step beside him. “Just wait and see,” he said with a voice full of promise, clearly reveling in the surprise he had prepared.

Once he had walked to where the fairy had flown (near the tree under which Chartreuse and I had sat just two weeks prior), he set his bag down and procured from it a flask full of yellow-green liquid. The fairy finally seemed to take notice of me, and after sizing me up she turned to Chartreuse. “Is he helping?” she asked.

I sized her up as well. Infant fairies are about eight inches tall (and are a favored snack of frogs and other woodland predators); fully grown ones are slightly shorter in stature than the average human. Most magicians favor fairies only a few hundred years old, since they’re just powerful enough to be useful, but not so powerful as to be difficult to control.

Judging by her height, this one was almost fully grown. Furthermore, she had shed the gauzy flywings of adolescence for a pair of mature butterfly wings, so that put her in her late hundreds, early thousands. I marveled at the strength Gammel Dore must have had to summon her, and then travel magically to the end of the kingdom for business so early in the morning.

“He’s just going to watch,” Chartreuse said, and the fairy immediately lost interest in me.

Typical.

(Fairies are, in as few words as possible: famously inattentive, petty, vain, and possessed with even more unearned self-importance than mortals, though I once doubted that was even possible.)

At a gesture from Chartreuse indicating he was ready, the fairy dropped a few seeds on the earth, and Chartreuse poured the contents of the flask over them. Pale vines popped from the seeds, and the fairy splayed her hands out, her power manifesting in a green glow surrounding the vines.

“Quickly now,” Chartreuse murmured.

The fairy’s face screwed up in concentration. “I'm trying! It's hard with Alchemy,” she complained.

“I understand. Just like we practiced, remember?”

As I watched, the vines wrapped themselves into a thin column and rose to about mid-thigh, before splitting into every direction on a horizontal plane. New vines emerged from the column to fill in the gaps left in the wake of the spreading vines. Then the spreading vines curled back in on themselves, growing back toward the center.

The fairy released her hold on the magic, and leaves and flower buds burst into existence at random intervals, like she had been holding them back with sheer mental effort. She blushed, confirming my suspicion. “Sorry,” she began, but Chartreuse told her it was perfectly fine, she'd done very well, etc.

I stood and stared at the thing.

It was a table.

Chartreuse and the fairy continued concentrating on their task -- creating chairs that resembled wicker outdoor furniture which, upon closer inspection, would be revealed to be healthy living vines rooted deeply in the earth. I stayed by the table and chairs as they moved to another area of the courtyard, where that old bench had been. I realized now that it was gone. All the old furniture was.

The table creaked faintly with the strain of its recent growth spurt. I reached out and touched it, and it felt quietly alive beneath my palm.

Something strange unfurled within my essence, a warmth that refused to be quelled. I moved my hand outside the reach of the table’s gentle aura, my other hand tightening around the neck of the bottle.

The bottle. The furniture. My throat worked around a bulb of emotion, so foreign as to be utterly unfamiliar. But I had been so long in this world and the next, had so much secondhand experience with human emotion, that I could guess easily enough at what I was feeling without knowing from personal experience.

It didn’t matter if I could _identify_ the emotion -- I hardly knew what to do with it. I hardly knew what to do with _myself._

What I ended up doing with myself was this: I trailed behind Chartreuse and his fairy cohort, watching as they immersed themselves in their task. They made benches and lampposts with fairy lights inside (and not the kinds of imp lights that require a low-level demon to be imprisoned within, but a simple Glamour glow that feeds sustainably on nearby plant life); their final project seemed to be developing into a picnic table.

It was obvious the fairy was struggling to maintain the rigidity and square planes, as vines want to curl and twist and loop, and she was fighting directly against their natural inclination. Sweat beaded on her temples and arms and dripped down her skin. Some of it fell to the grass, and where the droplets fell flowers burst into existence and bloomed, singing with energy.

At last, the picnic bench took shape, and the fairy released its hold over the plant’s growth. Her breath gusted out in relief, and she draped herself over the table wearily. “I’m exhausted!” she sighed.

I would be the first to acknowledge that fairies had a penchant for the melodramatic and theatrical, but it seemed the task really had drained her, so I decided in this case it might be warranted.

“You did very well, Priscilla. Thank you for your assistance,” Chartreuse said. “Why don’t you go and take a break?”

The fairy was across the courtyard like a shot, hovering momentarily among the boughs of the distant shade tree before she settled on one of the branches to relax.

Well. I guess she wasn’t that tired after all.

Chartreuse turned to me, beaming with pride. “What do you think?” he asked. I had composed myself before walking over to him, but seeing that radiant smile pointed in my direction made that unfurling warmth return, and I was struggling not to let it show on my face. Because of course, this had been for me, and it was growing more difficult each moment to rationalize that it couldn’t have been.

I looked away, pretended to appraise the new furniture as I regained control of my expression. “You’ve certainly outdone yourself,” I said. I thought of deflecting, of stooping to mockery or criticism. Some quip about Chartreuse branching out into the field of exterior decorating was on the tip of my silver tongue, but instead I ask, “May I ask what precipitated this experiment?”

Chartreuse’s smile broadened into something knowing. _Spirits_ , but he was too beautiful to look at straight on. “Since we had trouble finding accommodations for you last time, it occurred to me that students or faculty with Sorcery familiars might encounter similar problems -- though thankfully it hasn’t yet been an issue.”

My spine unwound from the tight spiral it had coiled into. I was grateful Chartreuse had made the intended beneficiary of this gesture somewhat vague. I didn’t know what I would have done if he admitted it was for me.

“... Also, I thought it would be a nice gesture to welcome you back to the tower. I understand if you don’t want to stay. But I thought if you could see how committed we are to making the Silver Star more hospitable, you’d feel more at home.”

I stared at Chartreuse from the corner of my eye. “Home,” I repeated numbly. Home was not a physical place for demons -- it wasn’t a concept we bandied about at all, if we could avoid it. But for those of us that did, home was this: it was the Other Place, a place that could hardly be called a ‘place’ at all, due to the strangeness of space and time within it; home was gorging myself on souls and living flesh until I was bloated with them; home was outwitting a particularly cruel master and cutting them to ribbons, or striking a particularly satisfying deal.

And for the first time I realized what I thought of as ‘home’ was already growing to include my strange new colleagues. Now, in addition to its other definitions, home had become bantering and drinking tea with Gammel Dore in his office; it was day drinking and debating magical theory in the courtyard with Chartreuse.

And home _could_ , eventually, be the Silver Star Tower -- this strange beacon of magic that would doubtless invite far more trouble than it was worth.

“... Thank you,” I said finally, eyes downcast as I tried to wrestle my perplexing feelings into submission. “It’s... _abominably_ kind of you.” I said it as though I meant my words scornfully, but I don’t think I fooled either of us.

“Of course, my friend.”

Decided, I walked around to the opposite side of the picnic bench and slid onto the seat. “Advocat,” I said as I placed the bottle on the table.

He raised a brow, sitting down slowly across from me. Chartreuse moved slower when he was puzzling something out. “Beg pardon?”

“My name,” I explained. “You mentioned I should have something to go by apart from my true name. And since I noticed you and your colleagues had the _temerity_ to name yourselves after alcohol, of all things...”

Chartreuse laughed and clapped his hands together, openly pleased. “Advocat,” he said, trying it out. Rather than sounding foreign, as new names are wont to until you break them in like a new pair of shoes, it sounded perfectly right when Chartreuse said it. “It’s an excellent name! Naming ceremonies are traditional for young magicians, but I don’t think you’d appreciate the fanfare...”

I imagined a bunch of strange magicians, Opalneria among them, sitting around and congratulating me for having a name. I grimaced. “I would not,” I agreed. “Anyway, I’ve had many names.” I waved dismissively. “No need to blow it out of proportion. It’s all quite tedious to me.”

“Perhaps we could drink to it, then,” Chartreuse suggested, gesturing at the bottle. “Just the two of us.”

I grinned and reached for the bottle in answer, and I uncorked it with a claw-like nail. Chartreuse procured two glasses from his bag. My eyes flashed -- had he planned this? It seemed likely, but who knew? Either way, I respected anyone who was _that_ ready to drink at a moment’s notice.

Chartreuse rose his glass first. “To new names,” said the Alchemist.

I lifted my own glass with a grin. “To new chairs,” I said.

Chartreuse threw his head back and laughed, a chest-deep, joyous sound that soothed my essence almost as potently as the drink.


	4. Chapter 4

In the spirit of sharing, I divulged to Chartreuse the rules of some ancient drinking games I happened to know. He was eager to learn them, and in turn taught me a few contemporary ones that I was unfamiliar with. In this fashion we made quick work of the bottle, but were unwilling to cease our merriment.

Luckily for us, Priscilla was willing to retrieve more drinks from Chartreuse's lab, once he invited her to partake. To her credit, she only offered the shallowest of protests at being roused from her nap. And of course, those dried up immediately once the offer of drinks was on the table.[1]

When she returned with an armful of bottles and fluttered down to the bench beside Chartreuse, I got a better look at her. Her wings, for once not a constant blur of motion keeping her afloat, spread out behind behind her, only shifting gently when a breeze disturbed them or her shoulders moved, They were a lurid, fiery red. Strange coloration, for a fairy -- blue and purple are more common. But that only made her grass-green dress and the circlet of leafy vines in her hair all the more striking by contrast.

We drank and chatted as the afternoon overtook the morning and grew into early evening. The courtyard’s enchanted sunlight -- for it could only be that, considering the tower’s great height and the courtyard’s position in the tower’s center -- became warm and dusky, casting deep, cozy shadows everywhere.

“So I already know Chartreuse,” Priscilla said after quaffing her fourth glass with alarming quickness. She turned to me. “What’s _your_ deal?”

I’d polished off a few glasses as well by then and was feeling content and non-confrontational. So instead of snapping, I sketched a little bow as best I could from my seated position. “My name is Advocat,” I said. “I teach Sorcery.”

Priscilla squinted at me. “But you’re a devil?” The sentence lifted in pitch at the end like a question, though I knew she wasn’t asking. Most any fairy could tell a devil from a mortal, and one as old as her surely knew the difference by now.

“Well-spotted. I am indeed.”

Priscilla’s face screwed up. “What kind of _bozo_ sells his soul just to have a devil teach Sorcery? Don’t tell me Gammel did something so asinine.”

I was of a similar mind, and I couldn’t help but grin even as I kept my silence on the subject. “Client/devil confidentiality prevents me from revealing if I even have a contract.”

Chartreuse snorted into his drink. Priscilla said petulantly, “No it doesn’t.”

“No,” I admitted. “But my own sense of discretion does.”

Priscilla took this in stride with an airy sigh, lifting a bottle and tilting it in the early evening light to see if any of its contents yet remained for us. “That’s fair,” she said. She put down the empty bottle and thrust out her hand. “You probably already know I’m Priscilla, if you’re half as clever as you’re supposed to be. It’s nice to meet you, Mr Advocat.”

If it weren’t for the drink contributing to the glaze in her eyes and the flush that extended to the tips of her pointed ears, I suspected she wouldn’t have dared speak so easily with me, nor suggest that it was anything but a chore or a nightmare to make my acquaintance.

I glanced at Chartreuse to see if he was also witnessing what must surely be a drink-induced hallucination. He only looked between us, half-smiling inscrutably. And was that a twinkle in his eye? I gave him an unimpressed look. That thing had better not be contagious.

No doubt the drink was affecting me more deeply than I thought, because I took her hand and smiled quite convincingly, as if I had something to gain from it. “The pleasure is all mine, Miss Priscilla.” And I drew her hand up to my mouth and bestowed her knuckles with a kiss.

She yanked her hand back with a shriek of delighted laughter. “Oh, you _are_ a devil!”

I pressed a palm to my chest, flattered. “You’re too kind.” We had been filling our own glasses, occasionally doing one another the courtesy if we happened to have a bottle in hand and someone lifted an empty glass. But this time I made a show of solicitously standing and refilling her drink. I returned it to her with a flourish, letting our fingers brush as I did. She snickered rather than tittering at this, catching onto my game and replying with an embellished curtsey.

I turned to Chartreuse. He seemed content to simply observe, but I thought it unfair to exclude him from our little game.

“And you, Doctor,” I said, putting on airs like a courtier greeting a foreign dignitary. “I confess to a deep-seated and ages-old loathing of magicians. But you, I find very nearly tolerable!”

Mirth sparkled behind his golden eyes and he nodded in acknowledgement. “Thank you, Advocat. I daresay I’m very _nearly_ flattered.”

I preened imperiously. “Of course you are,” I said, plucking at a tuft of lace at the end of my sleeve.

“Good evening,” came a new yet familiar voice. I retained my pose of self-concern as my eyes tracked Gammel Dore’s movements. He emerged from one of the many ivy-covered archways that circumnavigated the courtyard. As compared to this morning he looked mostly the same, if slightly wearier around the eyes than when he left.

Chartreuse’s expression conveyed open enthusiasm for the headmaster’s arrival. Priscilla did not emote so overtly, but I detected a change in her aura that was just as much recognition as it was joy.

Chartreuse said, “Welcome back, Professor Gammel.”

I recovered and offered Gammel a rakish grin. “Welcome back, indeed. Did you encounter a succubus on your return trip? You look positively _enervated."_

Priscilla snorted. Chartreuse hid a smile unconvincingly behind his hand, under the pretense of stroking his well-manicured beard.

Gammel’s twinkling gaze fell upon me like a pair of stars. “You might say that I had -- and indeed, that that is the reason for my current state.”

Chartreuse let out a surprised laugh. “Gammel, that’s deeply unkind!”

Priscilla waved a hand dismissively as she drank. “She’d take it as a compliment.”

I got the impression that I was missing an important element of the joke. Were they talking about Opalneria?

Gammel Dore smiled. “She would, at that. Thankfully she has no interest in the likes of me, so I only have to put up with her attempts at political maneuvering.” He looked upon the evidence of our revelry with a twinkle in his eye. “I take it you’re celebrating the new furniture?”

“Not only that,” Chartreuse said. “Our mutual acquaintance has chosen a name for himself.” At this, he gestured to me, and I prepared to introduce myself again with the same affectation of formality that I had assumed with Priscilla.

But before I could, Priscilla spat out her drink. “What?” she managed to gasp when she was done coughing. “It’s your _Christening?"_ she demanded. She had the look of someone who had just learned of an exam for which she had neglected to study.

My lips curled with distaste. “Please don’t ever use that word in reference to me again,” I said. Mortal religion is a whole lot of rot, but anything with the smell of angels about it is enough to put a devil’s teeth on edge.[2]

Priscilla rolled her eyes grandly. “Your Nameday, whatever you want to call it--” Then she turned, to my surprise, on Gammel. “Did you know about this, you old meddler?”

Gammel lifted his hands up in surrender. “I assure you, this is the first I’ve heard of it.”

Attempting to ease Priscilla’s distress, I tried, “I’ve had hundreds of names, you know. It hardly makes a difference...”

“It doesn’t matter if you’ve had a _thousand_ names, you-- _ugh!”_ She floated up, wings twitching in agitation as she hovered and fidgeted, as if she were being pulled in six directions at once. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and she vanished in a whirlwind of autumn leaves that seemed to come from nowhere.

In the ensuing silence, Chartreuse adjusted his glasses and said, “What was that all about?”

Gammel made a motion as if to stroke his beard, though I guessed it was to poorly conceal his amusement as Chartreuse had tried just moments ago. “When fairies are invited to a Christening--”

“ _Please stop saying that._ ”

“--it is customary to offer a gift or blessing. I believe she was put out at having come unprepared.”[3] Then he turned to me. “I'm only speaking in general terms.”

“Nevertheless,” I insisted.

Gammel Dore looked amused at my distress, but he nodded and said, “Very well.” And that was that. “What name did you decide upon?”

As I opened my mouth to speak, Priscilla reappeared. Orange day lilies had replaced the simple wreath of vines about her head, and she was wearing a slightly different dress of a paler green. Her face was flushed as if with exertion -- and in her hands sat a fine unpolished wooden box with brass hinges.

Priscilla cleared her throat. “Advocat,” she said. “On this your Nameday, I present you with this keepsake.” She offered up the box. I glanced between Gammel and Chartreuse, but their expressions gave no indication as to what they thought I should do. Big help, them. Somewhat at a loss, I gingerly took the box from Priscilla’s hands and turned it toward me. It opened silently on its brass hinges.

Inside was a scrap of sewn silk that I could not immediately identify. When I lifted it from the box’s green velvet interior, I realised it was a cravat.

It was the softest thing I had ever touched. And all about it hovered a subtle suggestion of autumn. It was enchanted, somehow. I couldn’t quite see the shape of the spellwork, delicately laid over its surface like spidersilk, but it was impressive stuff.

Preoccupied with examining the gift, I was caught by surprise when Priscilla took it from my hands and tied it around my neck. Her actions had an air of ceremony about them. “May your secrets be safe, and your spirit hearty.” _Essence_ , I corrected her to myself, but I was too stunned to interrupt her benediction. “And may you drink your fill in the company of friends for the rest of your days.”

I blinked as Priscilla moved away, looking satisfied with herself. “Thank you,” I said carefully. Something was tickling my throat and making it difficult to speak. It must have been the magic from the silk around my neck. When I moved my hand to soothe the sensation, my hand landed upon the decadent softness of the cravat. “It is a lovely gift, although I’m afraid I won’t be able to take it with me when I’m dismissed...”

“Gammel can hold onto it for you,” Priscilla answered. Gammel nodded in acquiescence. “The magic will still be there when you put it back on.”

I grinned, stroking the silk as if in invitation. “So... You putting it on _for_ me was just an excuse to touch, hm?”

Priscilla flushed. “No, you _ingrate_ , it’s traditional!”

“If you _want_ to touch, dear Priscilla, you need only ask...”

Priscilla shouted in frustration and threw her hands in the air. “Titania preserve me from devils and magicians!” She snapped her fingers and a new bottle appeared, beautiful glasswork flower impressions covering its surface. “Drinks!” she insisted. “We’re drinking!”

She strong-armed Gammel into the bench beside me and returned to her place beside Chartreuse.

“Drink!” she said.

So we drank.

**⛧⛧⛧**

After a few more rounds Gammel whisked me away -- and good thing, too, because Priscilla had begun fashioning flower crowns. For all my gratitude at her unexpected gift, I couldn’t be held responsible for what I might do if she tried to put one of those infernal things on my head.

A devil can only suffer so many indignities in one day.

As we climbed the stairs toward whatever destination Gammel had in mind, I caught him giving me one of those infuriatingly amused and knowing looks. I tried to discourage whatever oozingly sentimental thing he was thinking by muttering, “Whatever’s in that fool head of yours, I don’t want to hear it.”

He laughed, evidently not to be dissuaded. “I was just thinking these are good tidings! If you are to begin mending the wound of human-devil relations, it bodes well that you get along so well with Priscilla.”

I huffed, and caught myself about to stroke my cravat defensively. I dropped my hand to my side. “We’ll see how she feels when neither of us is intoxicated.”

Gammel Dore hummed and went on as if he hadn’t heard me, “And Chartreuse, too.”

“Yes, well,” I hedged, “as long as you’re giving me a progress report, I should tell you not to hold your breath waiting for me to break bread with Opalneria.”

Gammel Dore smiled with wry humor. “I imagine I’d go the way of the previous Sorcery teacher if I held my breath for _that.”_

I stumbled -- the drink, surely -- and quickly regained my footing. I couldn’t tell if he was saying that holding his breath for that long meant he would die, or if he was suggesting he’d be devoured by a devil (ostensibly me) for making such an onerous mistake. I couldn’t help laughing under my breath at the idea that he could easily mean either. The sharpness of his wit was constantly surprising me whenever it showed itself from within his somber, gentle exterior.

Gammel Dore laughed with me, gently touching my elbow to steady me. “I can hardly expect you to get along with everyone, Advocat.”

And with that we were standing before a door of unassuming wood. Gammel Dore gestured at it, as if he wanted me to do the honors. I crossed my arms with a pointed look at the gleaming handle. “I’m not touching that.”

Gammel Dore’s eyes smiled. “The handle is brass.”

I looked again at the door, and reached out to better gauge the material of the handle -- without touching it, of course. Silver and iron have a distinctive impression they leave on the air around them. They make everything sharp, and cold. Silver is worse, but iron is isn’t great either. Perhaps it was my state of mild intoxication that had dulled my senses, but it seemed obvious now that the handle was harmless.

I seized it in my grasp.

Nothing happened.

I cast a withering look at Gammel’s inordinately pleased expression. Then I stepped inside.

The room was high-ceilinged and lit by generous torchlight. The walls and ceiling were the same stone as the rest of the tower, but the floor was lacquered hardwood. A dais and a lectern stood in regal silence on the righthand wall, and beside the dais were bookcases with a selection of grimoires bound in shades of red. Then to its left, open floor space, all the better for drawing pentacles.

Desks and chairs at the back of the room. Tall windows on the wall opposite the door through which we’d entered. Chalk at the lectern, and rolls and rolls of parchment and ink pots and quills in the shelves upon the back wall, along with sundry other Sorcery supplies in jars: newts’ eyes, frogs’ legs -- you know the type.

“This will be your classroom,” Gammel said, after watching me take it all in with his usual patience. “Your office is through there.” He pointed at a door on the far wall that I had glossed over in my initial sweep of the room.

Naturally I wanted to see _that,_ so we crossed the room and opened the door. Within it was a birch writing desk and more office supplies, and a red-carpeted floor. The curtains -- red -- were drawn over the late evening sunlight.

“I’m seeing a lot of red,” I finally said.

Gammel Dore actually looked embarrassed! I savored the moment. “You seemed to go in for the, ah, traditional aesthetic, so I thought... Of course, you’re free to make any adjustments you see fit! And if you have a special request, I’ll be sure to see it fulfilled...”

Watching him make his excuses, I couldn’t stifle my laughter. “You’re _that_ worried I won’t like it?” I asked. Surely he knew I had never had a classroom before, or an office, or any material thing at all to call my own. I had never wanted such a thing.

But having material possessions thrust upon me with such frequency, I began to understand what drives mortals to greed.

Gammel Dore fussed with his sleeves in a surprisingly self-conscious gesture. “I admit to some concern that after everything, it would just figure if the thing that turned you off was that the interior design had been too predictable...”

I rolled my eyes. And contrary to conflicting reports, I did _not_ do so fondly. Gammel Dore’s fretting was not endearing at _all._ [4]

“It suits,” I finally said. “Thank you, Gammel.”

I had done so much thanking people lately that I feared my tongue might turn to stone for violating the unspoken code of conduct followed by devils everywhere. (I’d gladly elaborate on it here, but it’s unspoken because it’s the sort of thing that _kind of goes without saying._ )

“You’re welcome,” Gammel said, obviously relieved. “Now, I have need of your Sorcery expertise, but please take your time in here. I’ll be waiting in the classroom whenever you’re ready.”

I nodded, and Gammel left me alone.

Alone in my office.

I touched the birch writing desk. I could create a contract with all the necessary exclusion and protection clauses with a snap of my fingers, so having a place specifically for writing seemed like an indulgence. Handwriting letters! Who had the time for such things?

Well, _I_ did now, I supposed. I would certainly be expected to make time to grade my students’ work.

I didn’t sit at the desk, but I surveyed its drawers and cubby holes: quills, parchment, all expected things. What I did not expect to see was the box Priscilla had just given me sitting innocuously atop the desk, as if it had always been there. I realized I had never picked it up, nor had she returned it from whence it came, and as my eyes narrowed I realized Gammel Dore must have picked it up and spirited it away to my office while I wasn’t looking.

Clever man, him.

The bookshelves were mostly bare. I supposed I could fill them with whatever I wanted. Maybe the more dangerous grimoires could be here, rather than in the classroom -- I would have to place protections on the office. Just like a proper magician.

I snorted at the thought, and went to meet Gammel Dore in the classroom.

 _My_ classroom, I amended with private pleasure.

I closed the door behind me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 A devil, a fairy, and an alchemist walk into a bar. Sounds like the beginning of a joke, doesn't it? Unfortunately the only joke here is my reputation. ⤴  
> 2 I know this may come as an unpleasant shock to my devout readers, but angels are basically devils with astonishingly large egos. And their essence is anathema to us. I’m not sure if this holds true in the reverse, but if you catch wind of anyone looking to find out, you can send them as far away from my direction as possible. ⤴  
> 3 I admit to some familiarity with the practice. As evidenced by my favored guise being a _courtier_ and being that devils have a knack for political intrigue, I would be remiss not to know the customs of inviting magical beings to special occasions. But by token of being a _devil_ and therefore categorically extraneous to the concept of ‘Christening’, I had assumed that my kind were exempt from such customs. Evidently I was mistaken.⤴  
>  4Oh, who am I kidding? I can see _you’re_ not convinced.⤴  
> 


End file.
